As the President for the San Fernando Valley Chapter in 2018, Nazila Amighi, has contributed a great deal and she has raised the bar for leadership and contribution in the process.

The first thing that is important to know, is that midway through 2016, the board’s prospects for finding someone to serve as president-elect for 2017 and president for 2018 was very low. Those members who seemed to be qualified were reluctant to make a three-year commitment (president-elect, president, past-president) because of their own busy schedules and commitments.

Even though she had only been a member for a brief period of time and had not served on any board, Nazila possesses an energy and a light that draws people to her. She is warm, very thoughtful, and charismatic. Working on a hunch we approached her for the possibility. Despite her lack of any similar experience she was immediately up for the challenge. She spent 2017 as president-elect paying close attention, diligently trying to learn all she could so she could take the reigns in 2018. The hunch was right, she is an outstanding leader. Working from a collaborative leadership style, as is her personal style of interaction, she allowed each board member to find their own voice while encouraging the collective.

It was only after Nazila joined the board that the previous leadership realized just how much of a difficult, if not impossible position they put her in by asking her to jump in in such a big way. The leadership involved in this decision, all of whom had been board members for multiple years, forgot to look at this with “beginner’s eyes” and lost sight of what an enormous thing we were asking from Nazila, someone whom had never been a member of the SFV-CAMFT board, much less any board. This was not fair to her but she jumped in anyway, and acquitted herself with grace, aplomb, and was more than 100% dedicated and committed to leading our chapter.

Of the numerous things Nazila did as board president several stand out:

She expanded and restructured the sponsorship and outreach committees to expand our reach to potential community partners and engage them with our chapter for the benefit of getting our chapter better known in the community as well as in other professional circles.
Nazila also reached out to additional CAMFT chapters to initiate reciprocity agreements with some and expand the terms of those agreements with others.

Nazila oversaw the creation of new social media policies for our chapter, as well as, over seeing the expansion of use of social media.

She also updated our chapter membership levels to create more opportunities for people outside of our profession to join our chapter and decrease membership fees for trainees/associates.

For the first time, under Nazila’s leadership the chapter collaborated with professional organizations to provide CEU/educational opportunities. One with the local chapter of Social Workers in Southern California was a panel and workshop on cultural competency and helping clinicians’ challenge their own implicit bias. The second was with a local treatment center and provided excellent education on the current devastating opioid crisis.

Nazila’a overarching goal and theme for her presidency was to expand the chapter’s reach in the community and among allied professionals, thereby raising the chapter’s (and therefore the profession’s and our members) visibility, enhancing networking opportunities, and hopefully increasing potential business for our members.

The 2018 board of the San Fernando Valley Chapter of CAMFT is happy to whole-heartedly submit Nazila Amighi for the Outstanding Chapter Leader Award.